Apparatus and method for operating automated test equipment (ATE)
a technology of automatic testing and apparatus, applied in the field of automatic testing equipment, can solve the problems of significant overhead and wrong ate state information being passed among the controllers, and achieve the effect of simplifying the programming of the respective test controllers
Active Publication Date: 2008-04-22
LITEPOINT
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Benefits of technology
[0005]In accordance with the presently claimed invention, an apparatus and method of operating automated test equipment (ATE) in a networked environment of multiple external test controllers are provided. The system resources responsible for coordinating the shared uses of the ATE by the multiple external test controllers are centralized within the ATE. As a result, programming of the respective test controllers is simplified since the test controllers no longer need be responsible for communicating among themselves to coordinate or otherwise determine how and when to access to the ATE is granted to any particular test controller.
Problems solved by technology
Furthermore, significant overhead may exist, if the control program alters the ATE setup during test, in which case the ATE will either have to be initialized or reset, or the controllers will have to communicate among themselves regarding the state of the ATE setup.
Usually, the first approach is the safest, e.g., in case of a failure in the test, which can lead to wrong ATE state information being passed among the controllers.
Method used
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[0017]Referring to FIG. 1, benefits in throughput improvement in a production test setup by sharing ATE between two or more controllers is illustrated graphically, where the upper timeline depicts the “serial” nature of the conventional technique in which ATE use and operator interaction are sequential, and the lower timeline depicts the “parallel” nature of a technique in accordance with one embodiment of the presently claimed invention in which ATE use and operator interaction overlap. By operating the ATE via a different controller while the operator interacts with the device under test (DUT), significant throughput improvements can be achieved, particularly when the test time (for the ATE) is comparable to the DUT interaction time required by the operator.
[0018]Modern ATE often relies upon a computer inside to implement the control functions. Because of this, it is possible to integrate significantly more functionality inside the ATE. One option is to integrate the signaling por...
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An apparatus and method of operating automated test equipment (ATE) in a networked environment of multiple external test controllers. The system resources responsible for coordinating the shared uses of the ATE by the multiple external test controllers are centralized within the ATE. As a result, programming of the respective test controllers is simplified since the test controllers no longer need be responsible for communicating among themselves to coordinate or otherwise determine how and when access to the ATE is granted to any particular test controller.
Description
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0001]1. Field of the Invention[0002]The present invention relates to automated test equipment (ATE), and in particular, to operation of ATE in a networked environment of multiple test controllers.[0003]2. Description of the Related Art[0004]It is a common to use tester resource sharing when implementing manufacturing tests to insure maximum utilization of the tester (i.e., ATE). This is traditionally done by some sort of handshaking or message passing, where one test controller (e.g., a computer, or “PC”) signals to other controllers that it is currently using the ATE, with the other controllers waiting until the first controller is done using the ATE, following which the first controller signals that it is done using the ATE. This means that the actual sharing is traditionally handled separately from the ATE, e.g., by use of shared file structures among the controllers or by sending messages between the controllers. Whereas this is a usable implementatio...
Claims
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Login to View More IPC IPC(8): G01M19/00G01M99/00
CPCG01R31/31707G01R31/319H04L43/50H04L12/2697G01R31/318307
Inventor OLGAARD, CHRISTIANANDERSEN, THOMAS TOLDBORGANDERSEN, CARSTEN
Owner LITEPOINT